Review Catch-up & Book Group Report: Le Blevennec, Heisey, Wharton.

As the Eagle Flies by Nolwenn Le Blevennec Translated from the French by Madeleine Rogers The most recent novella from Peirene is the story of a relationship and the effect of an affair on it. The story is told after the end of the affair for good by our narrator, who is a mother of Read More

Nonfiction November Week 3 – Book Pairings

This week of Nonfiction November is hosted by Liz and the subject is Book Pairings. Pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for Read More

Assassin Eighteen by John Brownlow – blog tour

I am delighted to be one of those leading off the blog tour for this page-turning thriller. Imagine, if you will, that there is a long lineage of the world’s greatest hitmen – seventeen ‘generations’ actually – and that you only get to the top of the tree by killing the current leader. So seventeen Read More

Kerching! It’s so 1980s – Money by Martin Amis

I originally reviewed this book back in 2015, but thought I’d republish a slightly tweaked review after hearing of Martin Amis’ death this weekend. It’s also spurred me to dig out my copy of London Fields to re-read as one of my 20 Books of Summer. Here’s my review: So, earlier in the summer we Read More

The (Jazz) Baroness by Hannah Rothschild

A couple of weeks ago, I read a novel called Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar which, in its early 1960s timeline featured ‘Nica’, the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter – a daughter of the Rothschild family who abandoned her Baron diplomat husband for jazz, and specifically bebop pianist and composer Thelonius Monk. Best novel I’ve read Read More

Nonfiction November Week 3: Stranger Than Fiction

This week is hosted by Christopher @ Plucked from the Stacks. My immediate thought on reading the prompts for this week was to take me to one of my favourite TV series ever – Mad Men! If ever there was a profession where life imitates art it is the world of advertising in 1960s New York, Read More

Excuse me, but there’s a cockroach crawling up your skirt!

Mrs March by Virginia Feito From the moment I saw the cover, I was always going to read this book. First impression – that ‘Ratched‘ mint green dress, set against a tomato-red background, the woman’s blood-red lipstick and nails, her air of repressed primness. And then there’s the cockroach! Those critters just creep me out! Read More

The 1976 Club – Helen MacInnes

It’s time for another Club reading week hosted by Simon and Karen – and the year chosen this time is 1976. When I examined Wikipedia’s 1976 in Literature page, I saw I’d read quite a few back in the day – most of the SF listed (Delany,Herbert, Niven/Pournelle, Zelazny), plus an assortment of others including Read More

Book Group report: N is for Nora Ephron

Heartburn by Nora Ephron Our Book Group have reached the second half of the alphabet! May’s book for discussion was the only novel by the creator of peerless romcoms, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, the latter she directed too. She also wrote the screenplay, directed and produced Julie & Julia, the book Read More

Three more Novellas for Nov, well Dec now

As I love novellas, I kept on reading them after the end of Novellas in November (hosted by by Cathy and Rebecca). So here are quick reviews of three more, all of which were superb: one each from Irish, French and Italian authors. Academy Street by Mary Costello Costello’s 2014 novella follows in the vein of Colm Tóibín’s Read More

Alfred Hayes and his three ages of failed love…

I discovered the world of Alfred Hayes a couple of years ago when I read My Face For the World to See (reviewed here). That novella explored the doomed relationship between a nameless married narrator who rescues a younger woman from drowning at the beach in LA. The writing was so beautiful, so intense, so Read More

Paul Auster Reading Week: City of Glass, the Graphic Novel

Adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli If you’ve read City of Glass, the first of the three novellas that comprise Auster’s New York Trilogy, (more on that here), you’ll realise that it isn’t an easy text to adapt to a graphic form. There’s not much action really, a lot of sitting, watching and especially Read More

Why Auster is my favourite author and why you should try reading him

Auster’s first fiction published under his own name was three novellas, initially published separately in 1985-6, then collected as The New York Trilogy (NYT). I discovered the NYT when it first came out in paperback in the UK. I was attracted to the cover, also bearing Faber & Faber’s livery (right); the blurb promised detective Read More

Two Short Reviews: Rodriguez Fowler & Bourland

The Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodriguez Fowler I was lucky enough to be on the Shadow Panel in 2017 for this fabulous award that celebrates works by young authors (18-35), having followed it before then, and ever since, naturally. This year’s Shadow Panel also had an interesting set of books to choose from: poetry, a Read More

A New York story of ancient Egypt…

The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen It’s rare that I accept a direct approach by an author to review their books, but I liked the premise of this book which combined the story of an Englishman in New York with an obsession about ancient Egyptian art, so I said, “yes,” when Paul, Read More

The Book Lucy Ellmann wrote before Ducks, Newburyport

Mimi by Lucy Ellmann Although I know it’s really readable, I am still putting off getting started on Ellman’s Booker shortlisted (and tipped to win?) doorstop of a novel, Ducks, Newburyport. I tell myself it’s because as a Galley Beggar subscriber I have the limited edition black cover and I don’t want to break the Read More

20 Books of Summer #5 & #6 – Greer & Hustvedt

I’d expected to read more books in July than my list shows, having been on ‘school holidays’ since July 5, (although slaving at home on and off for a fortnight on the School magazine). But then I look at my bed – which is where the books I’m reading tend to sit – and there Read More

A love letter to his wife

About Alice by Calvin Trillin I was going to choose the only other book I’ve read by Trillin for the letter T in my go at Simon’s Twitter tag #AToZofBooks which I’ve enjoyed doing over the past couple of days, but I got distracted by another author. Tepper Isn’t Going Out (reviewed here), which I read back in late 2008, is a comic masterpiece all Read More

Wellcome Book Prize reading: #5 R&R

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottesa Moshfegh Well, it’s a while since I read a book that I disliked so thoroughly, but felt compelled to read to the end! This book is all sex and drugs, but no rock’n’roll. I’d felt put off reading it before by the ‘school of David’ painting on Read More

Novellas in November Part 1

This year I’m joining in with Novellas in November, a long-running tag now sort of shepherded by Laura at Reading in Bed.  I absolutely love novellas, that extra length over a short story, of say up to 150 pages, gives space for development of plot and characters, but still requires the author to move things Read More

Beaucoup de Wit(t)!

French Exit by Patrick deWitt One thing’s clear: Canadian author deWitt is incapable of writing the same thing twice. Each of his four novels is unique – from the bartender making notes about his customers for a novel in his debut Ablutions (see here) to the The Blues Brothers meets Deadwood of the fabulous The Sisters Read More

Can you cheat fate?

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin I’ve been itching to read this novel due to its clever premise since I first got my hands on a copy. I’ve finally made time for it. How long would you live your life if you knew the day you were going to die? This is the central question, emblazoned Read More

Some recent reads in short…

It’s catch-up time again… Three Days and a Life by Pierre Lemaitre  While I loved Lemaitre’s Verhoeven trilogy and last year’s superbly creepy Blood Wedding, Three Days and a Life was a slight disappointment. It’s still an excellent suspense novel, but lacks the elements of surprise and immediacy that his others have shown.  It has Read More

Two books about Learning to Drive…

While reading the first of this pair, I was perusing my shelves and found another book that was nominally about starting late in ‘learning to drive’ so the obvious thing was to read both and review them together. These books were especially appropriate to my own situation – I didn’t take my car driving test Read More

Catching up – Jan and Feb Book Group reviews

I thought it was time I started reviewing the books I’ve read this year, so today I’m catching up with our book group reads discussed in Jan and Feb. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis This was the first book I read this year, managing to squeeze it in just before we met a few days into January. Read More

The immigrants’ shattered American Dream…

Family Life by Akhil Sharma Imagine the excitement of going to America from Delhi to live. Even though life in India was comfortable and full of cricket, America is the dream destination for nine-year-old Ajay’s accountant father. First, his father went, found a job, set up home; then a year later, he sent one-way tickets Read More

4 Stories, 13 views…

Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann My first encounter with McCann, this volume contains some of his shorter fiction: a full novella and three short stories of varying lengths. The titular novella has thirteen short chapters, each prefaced by lines from a poem about a blackbird that inspired the title (Thirteen Ways of Looking Read More

The Bookish Time Travel Tag!

I was tagged in this meme which is on it’s travels around the bookblogs by Kaggsy, but it was started by The Library Lizard. I couldn’t not give it a go… 1. What is your favourite historical setting for a book? If you did the stats on books I’ve read, it would probably come up Read More

The lost post archive: The Dark Tower

Stephen King’s Magnum Opus – The Dark Tower I read the seven volumes, comprising over 4000 pages, of King’s Dark Tower epic fantasy over a period of four years. All the posts were ‘lost’ in my domain transfer. I’ve restored them into their original places in the time-line, linked below. It’s been a couple of Read More

More from the pre-blog archives…

Back to book reviews soon, but for the bank holiday I decided to revisit some more of the capsule reviews I wrote for myself in my mega-spreadsheet which I started pre-blog and still keep going. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart Feb 2008: The story of Merlin’s youth up to the birth of Arthur. I read Read More